Thursday, January 16, 2014

ARE THERE STRANGERS AMONG US? on LEA 29 presented by Freewee Ling

This month FreeWee has a full sim build at LEA 29. http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA29/128/128/23

When you arrive at Are there strangers among us?

It is called "Are there strangers among us?"

When you arrive at the sim you should find a notecard giver. What the notecard says is below...

LEA29 : Are there strangers among us?
Art & Installations by FreeWee Ling

The artists in the January 2014 LEA Interim Project were given only a few days notice that we would be given a whole sim to play with for a month. My mantra throughout life seems to be "All it takes is unlimited resources." It's just too good an opportunity to pass up, even knowing it can't be what you might have done with more planning and thought.

As usual for me, the work has emerged fairly organically. Most of the objects in the central gallery are things I've done over the last year or two. Most has never been shown publicly before.

Around the perimeter of the sim is a remote village or place of undetermined character. The only inhabitants appear to be government security clones and space aliens. It's not clear who's doing what and why. The aliens are not unknown and seem to be trying to fit in somehow. The government agents don't really care, but it seems to be their job to watch and take notes, so that's what they do. There is no conflict. Just mutual suspicion.

THE UNDERGROUND
There is a subterranean tunnel under the roadways. You can access it through the manholes in the NW or SE corners of the sim. You can chose a bumper car to travel in, or there is a motorcycle that can be ridden if you can find it wherever it was last abandoned.

A DRIVE IN THE COUNTRY
Take a leisurely nighttime drive in an open landscape. Rez a car from the sign on the SW corner. NOTE: You don't have to drive far in the cars. You will be taken on a trip and can just let the landscape pass you by.
WARNING: When you exit your vehicle there will still be oncoming traffic. PLEASE BE CAREFUL where you walk.

There are other features still in development. Please return to see the changes until the end of the month!

You should also see an "Environmental Notice" telling you to turn on advanced lighting model, shadows, reflections, and allow the sim windlight. And please do grab a copy of FreeWee's Hell & Bowel crank movie camera. She says that it is a "low-prim, mostly sculpted old-fashioned movie camera and tripod. Inspired by the Bell & Howell Standard Cinematograph Type 2709 hand crank 35mm camera that was the workhorse of the movie industry in the early 20th century. It is NOT a faithful replica of the 2709, It is not to scale, many details are lacking. But it looks really cool."

I agree, it does look really cool. As someone who is fascinated by objects from past times, I'd say it looks very authentic and interesting. There is also an drawing by H.W. McCauley of Cinderella Inc, you'll see what I mean when you visit. McCauley was an illustrator of US pulp magazines during the 1940s.

FreeWee tells me "there are things going on with space aliens but it's not really clear what. The government security people are watching, but not acting." There is this underlying sense of paranoia. This work is very political and it reminds me of the McCarthy era where so many innocents were charged of being Communist.

FreeWee on her way back to work on her build

Even today, we live in a time of widespread paranoia. In such a time as now where everything is international and cultures exist side by side, foreigners are still under suspicion and not trusted.

I met her at the sim while she was working and we had a brief chat. She told me of an exciting piece of news, "And there's going to be a hunt across all the LEA interim sims. That will start in a few days.

I'll have 10 freebies hidden about. Should be cool. Finn Lanzius is heading that up."
There is a "lot of great stuff going up this month. Pretty impressive for as little notice as we had."